Category Archives: Mobile Programming

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Canvas 2.0, the next generation of multipoint visualization and collaboration system for enterprises was unveiled by Jupiter system at InfoComm 2013. This newest version of Canvas adds much awaited support for Android as well as iOS devices along with many other features like instant messaging and sharing. There is also true collaborative visualization provided for the users, allowing them to share screens on display walls, mobile devices and desktops via wireless or wired network.

Jupiter system has been at the forefront of delivering collaborative visualisation solutions ranging from smartphones and desktops. Over the years, Canvas has been giving users added leverage to annotate live video streams in real time over a slew of devices. Regardless of their location, users of Canvas 2.0 would be able to easily share a captured stream over supported devices.

This newly added support for mobile devices will give a huge boost to the enterprises as mobility has become the centerstage of all enterprise solutions. Uptill now, video display walls have been highly viable in the enterprise sphere for the use of real time video communications and sharing of resources. But a major drawback for them was that they were isolated and restricted to a single location. In order to take full advantage of its usability, users had to remain in the same room at the same time to review the resource. In the current ecosystem, this was not a viable solution.

Canvas 2.0 moves beyond the location constraints with remote devices that can stream sources wirelessly. In addition to that, there is also real time instant messaging services added so that user can also communicate with each other and make vital decisions in real time. This not only extends the interactivity quotient for critical content sharing but also enhances the collaborative virtualization from almost any networked device, which is highly essential for enterprises.

Apple is significantly enjoying its marveling success being the most profitable mobile platform and there is no denying the fact that the Cupertino company has surely played its hands well enough to secure the top spot. there are many reports that have revealed the number stacking in favor of Apple and its fastidious concern to design and details.

According to New Forrester reports, when it comes for uses making actual purchases on their mobile devices, Apple holds the top position. The survey of 58000 U.S respondents found that shoppers of iOS are around 30 percent more likely to make a purchase on their devices. Moreover they are about 15 percent more likely to conduct product research on Tablets and Smartphones as compared to Android users.

But despite the variation, technology market is still targeting both the platforms so as to make a line of deals. According to the survey, 99 percent of the ebusiness professionals who are being surveyed, are intended to launch either a Native or Hybrid iOS app by the end of 2013. There also exist 96 percent, who are targeting the same for the Android platform. Moving on with Google and Apple, there’s very noticeable drop off in interest, and only big brands with big budgets are looking forward at platforms like Blackberry and Windows mobile.

The reason withstanding this conclusion is that around 41 percent of ebusiness pros have just to the tune of half a million dollar or less to spend on their mobile budgets. The money can not go so far, and pales in comparison to general market. This alone stand as solid reason why cross platform solutions will continue to succeed. While the market appears unified between Apple and Google, that actually contradicts a significant amount of fragmentation that occupies sufficient amount of developer time and resources within those large camps.

Developing for either Android or iOS is much resource intensive affair than it was ever before, rather than the efforts made by both the companies to enhance users to upgrade and to make it at ease in building software compatible across OS versions and device particulars. In some terms, Fragmentation is boon to both Apple and Google, as it has helped them maintained their platform advantage.

Ever since the advent of smartphones, there has been an exponential rise in the importance of mobile application ecosystem. With close to two million applications already developed and published across various platforms, mobile app economy has become a centre stage for premium content sharing. There are various approaches followed by mobile app developers in the form of free and paid applications. While paid applications have been generating bulk of the revenue, free applications in the form of ad based and well as in-app purchases.

According to some analysts, the mobile ad spending would see a substantial rise from $8.4 billion in 2012 to $37 billion in 2016. Moreover there would also be a substantial rise in the number of freemium applications as developers are trying hard, to churn out revenue in the ever competitive app market. Over the years, generating revenue has become really hard for developers in the form of paid applications. But on the hind side, mobile marketers are optimistic that mobile channel would continue to grow in the same manner and would be a good scope for ROI.

While mobile app usage has been on the rise at a continuous rate, it is yet to reach its penultimate stage due to lack of relevant content. The major reason behind this is that most of the developers still are unable to capitalize on the requirement of their targeted audience. Most of the mobile analytics firms are trying hard to overcome this hurdle by measuring the challenges faced by the developers to reach over to their user community. Most of these analytics are tracking based, which does not give the whole picture regarding the amount of penetrations an applications has.

The main idea behind the overall app economy should be to go beyond the traffic numbers as emphasis ought to be on the app content and how it is being reflected upon the end user. The ideal approach in this way would be to analyze application affinity and democratize that information to prove better product and services.

Apple in that aspect has been highly proficient by giving developers efficient tools like UDID which has been replaced by the advertising identifier for better marketing purposes. It has also been the most profitable mobile operating system, with over $7 billion already been paid to iOS developers. With freemium model catching up among developers, that revenue will also take a huge boost. The engagement between users and developers is highly necessary for a better product. As developers will start to encompass on the user requirement, it will create a more feasible app ecosystem.

Mobile and Web development is entirely based on the aspect how an app is designed and how it overall looks. The functionality of the app and its utility is the second most influencing feature for the mobile development. In order to attract more and more users, an app must be simple and fast enough to fall with the interaction speed of the user. Otherwise there will not be significant hold on customers and user will be least interested in the app.

In the hyped technology era, there are various factors that are dominating the mobile experience. From responsive web design to fluidic UX, it is the world of project management, invoicing, time tracking and other productivity tools. This gives the overall app the ability to save time and have an intuitive interaction with the end user. People don’t want to spend much time working their way around some software which is supposed to be helpful for the enterprise to make more financial stability.

An uplifting user interface usually constitutes:

Positioning of elements

Better use of color coding

Speedier and Faster page loads

Activity Indicators

Help and Tool tip

Positioning of elements – Web designers and programmers often strive hard while designing the information architecture in web pages. Designers are always into offering something exceptionally different than what they were delivering earlier. But this endeavour don’t last long as users get lost and have to relearn how to work their way around the application or the website.

Color coding – Color plays important role in the website. It send signals to the user subconsciously, in the form of pop ups and buttons. Something very important on webpage can be highlighted using colors and it will certainly enable you draw attention towards something of high vitality.

Speed – Speed is the key to save time. Application must be quick enough to load. For an average app 5 seconds are usually considered sufficient and manageable time to set up all the features. If using AJAX to load a page, GIF’s must be utilised so as to let users know what exactly is happening, it’s important for the users to know what exactly is going on as this allows them to be in sync with the application increasing their waiting time.

Overall design has become a pivotal force which defines how an application interacts with the end users and its viability. Developers are now starting to engage more on a personalized level, giving emphasis to design so as to diversify functionality.

There has been an avid saying among the game publishers that the availability of a single game isn’t likely to influence the purchasing decision of customer. But that doesn’t mean that taking the first step towards mobility will not make a difference. The advent of smartphones as well as tablets have changed the whole ecosystem of gaming applications and the ways users used to perceive them.

Nowadays, mobile game applications comes packing with a lot of processing power and high definition graphics that require fast rendering. Most of the console publishers have already started to port their games over to mobile OS like Android and iOS. Mobile platforms have taken cognizance of the fact that mobile gaming can leverage their app ecosystem which is why they have been working with game publishers to bring their applications over to their platform.

While Android and iOS have enjoyed bulk of the gaming applications in their marketplace, other platforms like Microsoft and Blackberry have been trying to woo developers as well as game publishers in a big way. Blackberry even went to the extent of guaranteeing $15,000 minimum to any developer who would port their application over to their OS. Microsoft has also followed the same suit and subsidized the development of applications for its platform. Moreover, it went a step ahead by spending to the tune of $60,000 and $600,000 in order to bring big name apps to the Windows Phone Store.

On the other hand iOS and android had their handset popularity going in their favour. With more than 800,000 apps totaling 45 billion downloads, The Cupertino company has paid nearly $8 billion to the developers for their app sales. Same is the case with Google, which has seen a sheer rise in their revenue gains from the Play store.

The big question that is floating around the corridors of technology sphere is that how will Microsoft and Blackberry counter and compete with pure marketshare power of Android and iOS. They have tried to push their platform in favour of developers but still, they have been unable to put any dent in the market capture of the other two behemoths.

This also brings in the question of cross platform application support. There is a lot of talk among the developer community regarding the availability of applications across various platforms that would not only help developers but also the end users. Although there have been many projects to help developers make their application available on various platform, but until platforms itself come on board, it will be hard to stay accustomed to the everyday changes and updates.

Gaming in that aspect has been highly viable option like in the case of a popular game Angry Birds. It is the same on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10. Same app and same gameplay being supported on different platforms. There are a lot of other options that also fall in the same category, which gives the feeling that although it is difficult, but not impossible. If this hurdle is overcome, then surely, mobile gaming would take a turn for good and expand exponentially.

There is a significant explosion in the overall usage on social media platform. With the advent of Internet among the masses and the coming of age of mobility, there has been a profuse dependent of brands on social websites. This engagement is not constrained to chatting and public linking, but has now brought up sharing to a whole new level. Every single day, millions of users are expressing their likes on Facebook, tweeting about products and services on Twitter, and pinning posts to Pinterest. Hence social commerce has now become the focused attention of major retailers and some big brands.

But one big question that most of the the market juggles to understand is that how to convert that “pin”, “tweet” and “like” into sale? There exists some converging trends that promise to transform social media into viable commerce platform.

The rise of mobile – The evolution of mobilesreveal that shoppers can compare price and bespoke advice from friends, no matter where they are. However, mobiles account for just under 40 percent of time spent on social media. Pinterest is at 48 percent whereas Facebook has passed more than 50 percent of the mobile usage. Following the persisting growth of mobile devices, it will continue to last long. Brands seek guaranteed attention in this medium, coupled with the explosion which helps to explain social media’s move away from traditional display ads.

The rise of visual web – Numerous sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr are turning repositories for fashion tips, shopping ideas, into user generated catalogs. They not only give a vital insight to the latest trends that have become the consumer’s apple of the eye, but also share engaging demographics among brands for futuristic services.

Demographics – Today most of the tech savvy as well as engaging users are accustomed to online shopping and tend to see their smartphones and tablets as the biggest computing device for their shopping necessities. Pinterest’s average users hold the age between 30 to 49, which is an age bracket with considerable disposable income.

Need to overcome challenges – The social commerce has become a major player in pushing online purchasing, but still there are major hurdles in place to make it a more viable source. With the transformation taking place over to mobility, consumers are seemingly feeling more insecure as brands still not have a proper mobile policy so as to make the consumer feel secure.

The current social engagement involve way too many steps and there is still no cross platform accessibility available. With animosity among the mind of the users as well as brands, there has to be a more open approach that can give a vital boost to the sales based on pins, tweets and likes.